The qualitative method of Critical Incident Technique (CIT) that is now used both in quantitative and qualitative studies. It was developed by Flanagan (1954) when conducting extensive studies with the Aviation Psychological Program for the United States Army Air Forces to establish procedures for the selection and classification of aircrews (Callan, 1998).
In CIT, respondents are invited to describe a critical incident which has occurred to them in the particular area of research interest, and their observations are collected and applied to a problem solving exercise (Flanagan, 1954).
Each incident or “observable human activity that is sufficiently complete by itself to permit inference and predictions to be made about the person undertaking the activity” (Bitner et al., 1990:73) should have happened in an authentic situation (Flanagan, 1954).
Critics of qualitative research approaches, such as CIT, question the reliability and validity of the data collected in these studies. There is no doubt that qualitative methodologies involve interpretation by researchers (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). Researcher bias will emerge in coding, category development and interpretation. Anderson and Nilsson (1964), for example, report that the categorization phase of CIT is always contentious due to its subjectivity and complexity. In the face of such serious challenges, justifications of qualitative research methodologies vary widely. Some invoke philosophical arguments, highlighting the fact that, unlike quantitative researchers, who claim objectivity without giving a thought to the subjective bias in their very framing of research questions, qualitative researchers are at least honest in that they recognize that “the researcher is central to the sense that is made” (Banister, Burman, Parker, Taylor and Tindall, 1994, p. 2). Others, such as Anderson and Nilsson (1964), use quantitative tests to determine the reliability of data gathered. CIT has also been criticized for its failure to capture the range and frequency of ‘similar’ incidents. Such criticism betrays the bias toward quantitative research in business studies and fails to appreciate the uniquely rich and complex information which CIT yields, the distinctly individual tone which it captures, and the subtle emotional content which it reveals.